037  THE  GOLD  STANDARD  BILLS. 

444 


SPEECH 


OF 


HON.  GEORGE  TURNER, 


OF*    WASHINGTON, 


IN   THE 


SENATE  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES, 


Wednesday,  February  7,  1900. 


WASHINOTON. 


SPEECH 

OF 

HON.    GEORGE    TURNER. 


The  Senate  having  under  consideration  the  substitute  proposed  by  the 
Committee  on  Finance  to  the  bill  (H.  R.  1)  entitled  "An  act  to  define  and  fix 
the  standard  of  value,  to  maintain  the  parity  of  all  forms  of  money  issued  or 
coined  by  the  United  States,  and  for  other  purposes ' ' — 

Mr.  TURNER  said: 

Mr.  PRESIDENT:  We  have  before  us  for  consideration  both  the 
original  bill  as  it  passed  the  House  of  Representatives  and  the  sub- 
stitute drafted  by  the  majority  of  the  Finance  Committee  of  this 
body  and  reported  to  us  by  the  latter  in  lieu  of  the  original  bill. 
The  provisions  of  both  measures  are  identical  in  their  essence,  and 
are  intended  to  effectuate  precisely  the  same  objects.  The  only 
difference  is  that  the  language  of  the  substitute  is  a  little  more 
subtle  than  that  of  the  original  bill,  and  accomplishes  by  the  indi- 
rection of  necessary  but  veiled  construction  some  of  the  objects 
which  the  House  bill  openly  and  candidly  avows.  I  think  I  shall 
show  the  essential  agreement  of  the  two  measures  before  I  con- 
clude my  remarks,  and,  since  the  House  bill  may  in  the  end 
prevail  against  the  Senate  substitute,  I  think  it  safer  to  address 
my  remarks  to  both  measures  rather  than  to  the  Senate  substi- 
tute alone. 

OBJECTS  OF  THIS  LEGISLATION. 

The  first  and  most  important  object  of  this  legislation,  as  I  read 
it,  is  to  fix  and  fasten  on  the  American  people  forever  the  single 
gold  standard,  and,  by  removing  from  the  arena  of  contention  the 
only  nation  whose  voice  in  favor  of  silver  might  compel  the  re- 
spect of  other  nations,  to  fasten  that  standard  on  the  world  for- 
ever. 

The  next  great  object  is  to  establish  in  favor  of  the  national 
banks  of  the  country  a  monopoly  in  the  issue  and  control  of  all 
money  save  gold,  and  thereby  to  establish  the  great  trust  of 
trusts,  around  which  all  others  shall  revolve,  paying  homage  to  it 
in  time  of  prosperity  and  drawing  sustenance  and  support  from 
it  in  the  hour  of  adversity  and  threatened  disaster. 

These  are  the  two  great  primary  objects  of  both  the  House  and 
the  Senate  bill.  In  devising  the  machinery  to  accomplish  them 
it  has  been  thought  proper  to  decree  several  other  results  which, 
in  the  light  of  the  primary  ends  sought,  may  be  called  subsidiary, 
but  which  are  so  startlingly  brazen  in  their  disregard  of  the  rights 
of  the  people  that,  if  they  stood  alone,  they  would  command 
amazed  and  indignant  attention  from  every  lover  of  his  country 
and  his  kind.  For  instance,  it  has  been  thought  proper  to  strike 
down  and  reduce  to  the  condition  of  token  money  the  $600,000,000 
of  silver  money  in  the  country,  now  coined  and  in  circulation,  thus 
changing  by  a  stroke  of  the  pen  an  asset  of  $600,000.000  belonging 
to  the  United  States  and  its  people  into  an  indebtedness  due  from 
them  for  that  stupendous  sum.  Oar  Republican  friends  are  not 
content  to  give  the  simple  quietus  to  the  white  and  shining  hand- 
2  .  40*0 


3 

maid  of  civilization  for  whom  they  lately  professed  so  much  love, 
but  the  dagger,  after  being  driven  into  her  heart,  is  to  be  turned 
round  so  that  the  wound  will  give  to  the  world  evidence  of  the 
ferocity  which  dealt  it,  and  thus  cow  into  submission  the  timorous 
voices  which  otherwise  might  lament  and  denounce  and  clamor 
against  the  cruel  deed. 

Another  subsidiary  result  decreed  is  the  increase  by  a  quarter 
of  a  billion  of  dollars  of  the  market  value  of  the  interest- bear  ing 
obligations  of  the  Government  in  the  hands  of  their  individual 
holders.  This  is  to  be  done  not  by  legitimately  appreciating  the 
credit  of  the  Government  and  thereby  benefiting  the  holders  of 
our  securities — no  one  could  complain  of  that — but  it  is  to  be  done 
by  giving  up  and  surrendering  a  valuable  option  in  our  favor  de- 
clared by  the  almost  unanimous  voice  of  the  Government  to  exist 
as  early  as  the  year  1878,  and  which  we  expressly  declined  to  sur- 
render at  the  time  of  one  of  our  later  bond  issues,  although  then 
offered  $16,000,000  to  give  up  the  option  in  connection  with  that 
bond  issue. 

Another  subsidiary  object  decreed  is  the  contraction  of  the  cir- 
culating medium  of  the  country  to  the  extent  of  more  than  $900,- 
000,000  until  such  time  as  the  national  banks  may  have  increased 
their  capitalization  sufficiently  to  enable  them  to  supply  the  deficit, 
thus  incurring  the  certainty  of  great  loss  and  inconvenience  and 
the  very  great  risk  of  irreparable  disaster. 

Another  most  remarkable  means  to  the  accomplishment  of  the 
ends  sought  is  the  vesting  in  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  of  the 
power,  in  executing  the  main  purposes  of  the  law.  to  issue,  at  will 
and  ad  libitum,  the  interest-bearing  bonds  of  the  nation.  The 
people  of  the  country  will  not  soon  forget  the  extraordinary  course 
resorted  to  by  Mr.  Cleveland  to  extricate  his  Administration  from 
its  financial  difficulties,  when,  instead  of  using  the  §500,000,000  of 
full  legal-tender  silver  money  then  lying  in  the  Treasury,  he  in- 
creased the  interest-bearing  debt  of  the  country  to  the  extent  of 
more  than  $250,000,000,  by  borrowing  that  amount  of  money  in 
gold  and  issuing  the  bonds  of  the  Government  therefor.  With 
the  same  amount  of  silver  money  still  in  the  Treasury,  it  is  now 
gravely  proposed  to  confer  on  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  as 
an  ordinary  everyday  prerogative,  and  for  the  very  purpose 
of  destroying  the  debt-paying  quality  of  that  silver,  the  power 
which  Mr.  Cleveland  exercised  in  the  last  resort  and  as  a  desperate 
expedient.  And  all  this  in  the  face  of  a  record  of  Republican 
clamor  and  abuse  and  objurgation  against  Mr.  Cleveland  only  six 
years  ago,  in  both  branches  of  Congress  and  in  the  public  press, 
and  of  protestation  in  favor  of  silver  and  of  denunciation  against 
those  who  would  debase  and  degrade  it,  which  ought  to  estop  and 
conclude  any  political  party  from  proceeding  in  the  same  direction 
now,  and  which  would  conclude  and  estop  any  party  not  calloused 
to  criticism  by  a  reliance  on  the  power  of  wealth  for  its  success 
rather  than  on  the  intelligent  voice  of  the  common  people  of  the 
land. 

THE  TWO  BILLS  ARE  ONH. 

Mr.  President,  I  shall  address  myself  to  the  task  of  showing  bjr 
an  analysis  of  these  measures  that  the  foregoing  general  summary 
of  their  purpose  and  effect  is  well  within  the  limit  of  their  pro- 
visions, and  in  so  doing  I  shall  make  good  as  I  go  along  my  state- 
ment that  the  House  bill  and  the  Senate  substitute  are  in  effect 
one  and  the  same  thing.  There  is  a  declaration  in  each  measure 
that  the  gold  dollar  shall  be  the  standard  unit  of  value  and  the 

4036 


2003099 


two  declarations  are  almost  identical  in  terms.  There  are  pro- 
visions in  the  respective  measures  making  all  forms  of  money 
issued  or  coined  by  the  Government  redeemable  in  money  of  the 
standard  value,  namely,  gold;  and  these  provisions,  while  not 
identical  in  terms,  are  so  in  effect.  The  House  bill,  after  provid- 
ing for  the  redemption  in  gold  of  all  interest-bearing  obligations 
of  the  United  States,  and  all  United  States  notes  and  Treasury 
notes,  and  all  other  public  obligations  of  the  Government,  makes 
this  provision  concerning  the  redemption  of  silver  money: 

SEC.  4.  *  *  *  And  if  at  any  time  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  deems 
it  necessary  in  order  to  maintain  the  parity  and  equal  value  of  all  the  money 
of  the  United  States,  he  may,  at  his  discretion,  exchange  gold  coin  for  any 
other  money  issued  or  coined  by  the  United  States. 

The  transaction  here  described  is  called  "exchange,"  bnt  an 
obligation  to  exchange  gold  for  any  other  "form  of  money  issued 
or  coined  by  the  United  States"  is,  of  course,  as  everybody  knows, 
an  obligation  to  redeem  that  money  in  gold,  and  everybody  knows, 
likewise,  that  silver  is  one  of  the  "forms  of  money  issued  or 
coined  by  the  United  States."  The  Senate  substitute  effectuates 
the  same  thing  in  this  regard  as  the  House  bill,  but  with  more 
subtlety  and  less  danger  of  exposure  to  criticism.  It  provides: 

SEC.  1.  That  the  dollar  consisting  of  25.8  grains  of  gold  nine-tenths  fine 
shall,  as  established  by  section  3511  of  the  Revised  Statutes  of  the  United 
States,  continue  to  be  the  standard  unit  of  value,  and  all  forms  of  money 
issued  or  coined  by  the  United  States  shall  be  maintained  at  a  parity  of  value 
with  this  standard ;  and  United  States  notes  and  Treasury  notes  issued  under 
the  act  of  July  14, 1890,  when  presented  to  the  Treasury  for  redemption,  shall 
be  redeemed  in  gold  coin  of  such  standard. 

This  is  a  direction  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  to  take  such 
steps  as  he  may  deem  necessary  to  keep  silver  at  a  parity  with 

fold,  and  it  means,  as  he  will  understand,  and  as  it  is  meant  that 
e  shall  understand,  that  he  may,  at  his  discretion,  establish  the 
practice  that  silver  when  presented  at  the  Treasury  will  be  re- 
deemed in  gold.  It  has  been  claimed  heretofore  by  the  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury,  notably  by  Mr.  Carlisle,  and,  if  I  am  not  mistaken , 
by  Mr.  Gage  also,  that  the  act  of  November  1,  1893,  repealing  the 
purchasing  clause  of  the  Sherman  Act,  conferred  the  power  on  the 
Secretary  to  redeem  silver  with  gold  when  it  declared  it — 
to  be  the  policy  of  the  United  States  to  continue  the  use  of  both  gold  and 
silver  as  standard  money,  and  to  coin  both  gold  and  silver  into  money  of  equal 
intrinsic  and  exchangeable  value,  such  equality  to  be  secured  through  inter- 
national agreement  or  by  such  safeguards  of  legislation  as  will  insure  the 
maintenance  of  the  parity  in  value  of  the  coin  of  the  two  metals  and  the  equal 
power  of  every  dollar  at  all  times  in  the  market  and  in  the  payment  of  deots. 

As  matter  of  fact,  this  declaration  is  very  far  from  conferring 
a  power  of  redemption  on  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  Both 
gold  and  silver,  according  to  that  declaration,  were  to  continue 
"as  standard  money"  and  to  be  coined  into  money  of  "equal  in- 
trinsic and  exchangeable  value,"  and  this  was  to  be  done  either  by 
international  agreement  or  the  safeguards  of  Congressional  legis- 
lation. Moreover,  the  Congressional  legislation  contemplated  did 
involve  the  expedient  of  redeeming  silver  in  gold,  because  thatnot 
would  have  been  to  discontinue  silver  "  as  standard  money,"  and 
would  have  had  the  immediate  result  of  destroying  the  "equal 
intrinsic  and  exchangeable  value"  of  the  money  coined  from  the 
two  metals.  The  difference  between  the  declaration  of  the  act  of 
1893  and  the  provision  on  the  same  subject  found  in  the  present 
Senate  substitute  and  the  far-reaching  effect  of  the  latter  will  be 
readily  seen  when  the  two  are  contrasted.  The  language  of  the 
act  of  1893  was  a  declaration  of  governmental  policy.  That  of 
this  proposed  law  is  a  direction  for  administrative  guidance, 

4026 


The  act  of  1893  proposed  to  maintain,  by  and  through  the  influ- 
ence of  legislation  giving  both  metals  a  fair  show,  the  equal  in- 
trinsic value  of  both  silver  and  gold.  This  act  proposes  simply 
that  silver  money  shall  be  maintained  at  a  parity  of  value  with 
the  standard  money,  leaving  it  to  the  discretion  of  the  Executive 
Department  to  adopt  such  means  as  it  may  deem  expedient  for 
that  purpose,  and  indicating  the  means  by  providing  for  the  re- 
demption of  other  forms  of  money  in  gold.  Finally,  the  act  of 
1893  was  a  declaration  that  silver  should  never  be  dishonored,  and 
that  its  rank  as  one  of  the  standard  money  metals  would  be  main- 
tained by  this  Government  by  every  means  at  its  command .  This 
act  has  for  its  prime  object  the  purpose  to  degrade  and  debase 
and  dishonor  silver;  to  strike  it  down  absolutely  as  standard 
money;  to  deprive  it  of  its  character  of  money  at  all  and  to  make 
it  simply  a  representative  of  money. 

A   REPUBLICAN   BUBBLE. 

Our  Republican  friends  will  fail,  I  apprehend,  when  they  go 
before  the  country  and  claim  that  this  proposed  law  is  simply  a 
reaffirmation  of  former  law,  and  that  the  power  conferred  by  it 
on  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  is  one  which  he  has  had  and 
which  he  might  have  exercised  at  any  time  since  the  year  of  1893. 
It  is  well  that  this  bubble  should  burst  before  it  has  been  fully 
blown.  To  more  completely  explode  it  I  hope  some  Senator  will, 
at  the  proper  time,  offer  an  amendment  to  section  1  of  the  Senate 
substitute,  providing  that  nothing  therein  contained  shall  be  con- 
strued as  authorizing  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  to  redeem  at 
the  Treasury,  or  elsewhere,  with  gold,  any  of  the  outstanding  sil- 
ver money  of  the  United  States.  If  our  friends  shall  accept  such 
an  amendment,  then,  while  I  shall  not  admit  that  I  am  mistaken 
as  to  the  effect  of  their  proposed  measure,  I  shall  admit  that  I  am 
mistaken  as  to  the  effect  which  its  frarners  intended  it  to  hare. 
If  they  shall  refuse  to  accept  it,  their  action  will  be  a  confession 
that  both  the  actual  and  intended  effect  of  their  guarded  but  skil- 
fully worded  legislation  is  such  as  I  have  described. 

We  have,  then,  in  both  of  these  measures,  not  only  an  affirma- 
tion of  the  single  gold  standard,  but  provisions  designed  to  clinch 
that  affirmation  for  all  time  by  destroying  absolutely  and  in  totd 
the  character  of  silver  as  money.  When  either  measure  shall 
have  passed  it  will  be  the  sheerest  folly  to  continue  the  use  of 
silver  as  money,  because  a  token  of  much  less  marketable  value 
and  of  infinitely  greater  convenience  can  be  found  to  take  its 
place.  What  would  be  thought  of  a  policy  of  printing  paper  dol- 
lars on  thick  clumsy  paper  costing  60  cents  per  single  sheet  when 
paper  equally  as  good  and  much  more  convenient  for  the  purpose 
could  be  obtained  for  60  cents  per  thousand  sheets?  Yet,  whea 
silver  is  degraded  to  the  position  of  token  money  and  made  redeem- 
able in  gold,  that  is  what  we  will  be  doing,  in  effect,  if  we  con- 
tinue its  use  as  money.  Better  call  the  silver  all  in,  melt  it  down 
into  bullion  and  sell  it  for  what  it  will  bring  in  the  mai-ket,  and 
make  all  our  token  money  both  cheap  and  uniform  by  the  exclu- 
sive use  of  paper. 

I  do  not  mean  to  argue  that  a  place  is  not  left  for  silver  as  a 
subsidiary  token  coin.  The  necessity  of  money  of  minor  denomi- 
nations for  change  and  small  transactions  which  this  bill  creates 
will  leave  that  money  a  place  in  the  business  of  the  country,  but 
it  is  a  most  insignificant  place,  and  one  which  will  still  further 
dishonor  and  degrade  the  white  metal.  Moreover,  it  is  a  place 
which  a  very  small  volume  of  coin  will  adequately  fill,  and  we 
4096 


6 

may  well  dismiss  a  consideration  of  it  as  unworthy  of  serious  re- 
gard. 

KAMCS  WILL  CONTROL. 

Now,  to  proceed  a  step  further.  Both  the  House  bill  and  the 
Senate  substitute  are  in  substantial  accord  in  the  provisions  de- 
signed to  accomplish  the  second  primary  object  described  by  me, 
namely,  to  create  and  establish  in  the  national  banks  a  monopoly 
in  the  issue  and  control  of  all  money  save  gold.  While  neither 
the  House  bill  nor  the  Senate  bill  makes  provision  against  the 
reissue  of  silver  coin  when  it  shall  come  into  the  Treasury  by 
exchange,  redemption,  or  otherwise;  yet,  no  longer  being  standard 
money,  and  deriving  its  value  largely  from  the  redemption  quality 
attached  to  it,  it  can  not,  in  good  faith,  be  paid  out  to  ordinary 
creditors;  and  if  it  should  be  so  paid  out  at  one  counter  of  the 
Treasury,  it  oould,  under  the  operation  of  these  proposed  meas- 
ures, be  immediately  taken  to  another  counter  and  exchanged  for 
fold.  No  one  will  want  silver  money,  both  because  of  thelegislation 
iscrediting  it  and  because  paper  is  more  convenient  to  handle. 
No  one  will  want  silver  certificates,  payable  exclusively  in  silver, 
because  in  order  to  turn  them  into  gold,  the  money  now  which 
all  must  have,  you  must  by  one  process  of  exchange  first  trans- 
mute them  into  silver  dollars  and  then  by  a  second  exchange 
transmute  the  silver  into  gold.  This  can  all  be  done  by  preferring 
the  gold  itself,  or,  if  paper  be  desired  for  convenience,  by  insisting 
on  the  gold  certificates  which  both  these  measures  alike  permit 
to  be  issued.  Indeed,  the  very  first  fiscal  operation  the  banks  will 
undertake  with  the  Government  after  the  passage  of  either  of 
these  measures,  unless  they  have  put  off  the  dross  of  humanity 
and  take  on  the  unselfishness  of  immortality,  will  be  to  transmute 
their  silver  dollars  and  silver  certificates  into  gold  certificates. 
They  can  first  surrender  their  silver  certificates  and  obtain  silver. 
Then  they  can  exchange  the  silver  for  gold.  They  can  then  de- 
posit the  gold  and  obtain  gold  certificates.  As  the  outstanding 
silver  dollars  and  silver  certificates  amount  approximately  to 
$500,000,000  and  it  is  now  proposed  to  increase  the  gold  reserve  to 
$150,000,000,  this  raid  of  the  banks  would  require  the  Government 
to  provide  itself  with  $650,000,000  in  gold.  It  now  has  in  the  Treas- 
ury approximately  $250,000,000  in  gold.  It  would  be  compelled  to 
provide  8400,000,000  more  gold.  The  only  way  to  do  that  would  be 
to  issue  the  3  per  cent  bonds,  which  both  of  the  proposed  measures 
provide  for  just  such  an  emergency,  and  to  borrow  on  them  the 
needed  gold;  so  that  the  currency  will  not  only  be  contracted 
$500,000,000  immediately  if  either  of  these  measures  be  passed,  but 
the  people  will  have  been  saddled  with  §400,000,000  more  of  bonded 
indebtedness  to  the  profit  of  the  banks  and  of  the  money  changers, 
•whose  intervention  seems  necessary  whenever  the  Government 
needs  to  borrow  money.  Should  the  Government  ever  succeed  in 
again  forcing  the  silver  into  circulation,  this  operation  could  be 
repeated  over  and  ovei  again  until  we  had  absorbed  all  the  surplus 
gold  in  the  world  and  mortgaged  ourselves  therefor  to  an  extent 
which  neither  our  children  nor  our  children's  children  would  ever 
see  the  end  of.  The  ability  to  repeat  this  endless-chain  perform- 
ance is  the  only  thing  that  will  ever  again  float  silver  beyond  the 
Treasury  doors,  and  the  certainty  that  silver  could  and  would  be 
used  for  that  purpose  is  the  safe  and  sure  guaranty  afforded  the 
banks  that  after  it  has  once  been  redeemed  it  will  never  again  see 
the  light  of  day  or  ever  again  be  permitted  to  vex  and  confound 
MM 


them  in  their  schemes  to  corner  the  money  of  the  nation.    So 
much  for  the  silver  money,  both  the  coin  and  the  certificates. 

Our  paper  money,  ontside  the  gold  and  silver  certificates  and  a 
very  few  currency  certificates,  is  composed  of  $346,681,016  in 
United  States  notes,  commonly  called  greenbacks,  and  $93,518,280 
in  Treasury  notes,  issued  under  the  act  of  July  14,  1890,  both 
amounting  in  the  aggregate  to  $440, 199,296.  The  House  bill  and  the 
Senate  substitute,  while  not  identical  in  terms,  are  in  substantial 
harmony  in  the  provisions  made  to  retire  these  forms  of  money 
from  circulation.  The  language  of  the  Senate  substitute  is: 

And  United  States  notes,  and  Treasury  notes  issued  under  the  act  of  July 
14, 1890,  when  presented  to  the  Treasury  for  redemption,  shall  be  redeemed 
in  gold  coin  of  such  standard. 

When  this  paper  money  has  thus  gotten  into  the  Treasury,  seo- 
tion  2  of  the  Senate  substitute  makes  it  the  duty  of  the  Secretary 
to  use  it  in  the  following  manner:  First,  to  exchange  it  for  any 
gold  coin  in  the  general  fund  of  the  Treasury;  secondly,  to  ex- 
change it  for  any  gold  which  individuals  may  offer  at  the  Treas- 
ury for  that  purpose,  and  third,  to  purchase  gold  with  it  in  the 
open  market  at  such  rate  of  discount  as  may  then  prevail  in  the 
market.  Now,  since  individuals  may  under  both  measures  pre- 
sent their  gold  at  the  Treasury  and  obtain  gold  certificates  for  it, 
it  is  certain  they  would  not  part  with  their  gold  for  a  less  satis- 
factory form  of  paper  money.  The  only  way,  then,  which  this  act 
leaves  by  which  we  may  get  the  paper  money  in  circulation  again 
is  to  go  into  the  open  "market  and  purchase  gold  with  it.  This 
would  immediately  place  gold  at  a  premium,  and  no  Administra- 
tion would  either  wish  to  do  that  or  would  dare  to  do  it  if  it  had 
the  inclination. 

GOLD  AND  NATIONAL.  BANK  NOTES. 

While  the  Senate  substitute  does  not  expressly  declare  that  the 
paper  money  shall  not  be  again  paid  out  in  the  ordinary  course  of 
business,  that  is  undoubtedly  its  purpose.  The  express  mention 
of  the  manner  in  which  it  shall  be  dealt  with  by  the  Secretary  is 
the  exclusion  of  every  other  means  of  dealing  with  it.  Expressio 
unias,  est  exclusio  alterius.  So  that  the  Treasury  notes  and  green- 
backs, having  once  got  into  the  Treasury,  are  there  for  all  time  and 
might  as  well  be  sent  to  the  macerater  at  once.  The  House  bill 
does  directly  and  certainly  what  the  Senate  bill  does  by  indirec- 
tion, but  with  no  less  certainty.  It  provides: 

The  notes  and  certificates  so  redeemed  or  exchanged  shall  be  held  in  and 
constitute  a  part  of  said  redemption  fund,  and  shall  not  be  withdrawn  there- 
from nor  disturbed  except  in  exchange  for  an  equivalent  amount  of  the  coin 
in  which  said  notes  were  redeemed,  or  exchanged,  etc. 

The  amount  of  money,  then,  which  it  is  proposed  to  retire  by 
this  legislation  is  as  follows: 

Silver,  approximately $500,000,090 

Treasury  notes  and  greenbacks 440,199,306 


Total 940.199.89S 

This  will  be  to  withdraw  from  circulation  almost  one-half  of 
the  money  in  the  country.  If  it  were  to  be  permanently  with- 
drawn, everyone  knows  that  the  results  would  be  frightful.  I 
shall  not  accuse  any  person  of  desiring  to  produce  results  so  bane- 
ful and  sinister.  Our  Republican  friends  are  simply  endeavoring 
to  create  a  hiatus  into  which  the  national  banks  may  step.  The  idea 
in  this  regard  is  to  vest  them  with  the  function  heretofore  exercised 
by  Congress  of  regulating  and  controlling  the  money  supply  of  the 

4028 


8 

nation.  This  has  long  been  a  favorite  idea  with  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury.  We  all  remember  his  appearance  before  the  House 
committee  more  than  two  years  ago  and  the  exposition  of  his 
policy  at  that  time.  He  wanted  to  fasten  the  gold  standard  on  the 
country  and  to  vest  the  power  to  issue  paper  money  in  the  banks, 
where  it  would  be  controlled  by  the  law  of  supply  and  demand. 
The  incident  made  a  deep  impression,  because  it  was  so  soon  after 
the  Presidential  election,  in  which  the  Republican  party  had 
pledged  itself  to  secure  bimetallism  by  international  agreement; 
because  we  then  had  a  commission  in  Europe  endeavoring  to  ne- 
gotiate such  international  agreement,  and  because  when  that 
commission  returned  its  chairman  excoriated  the  Secretary  while 
complimenting  the  President  on  his  steadfast  adherence  to  prin- 
ciple. But  it  appears  now  that  the  Secretary  was  better  acquainted 
with  the  purposes  and  views  of  the  President  than  the  distin- 
guished Senator  from  Colorado  who  was  chairman  of  the  Mone- 
tary Commission.  Note  now  what  the  President  says  in  his  last 
annual  message,  observe  its  agreement  in  every  respect  with  the 
analysis  which  I  have  made  of  the  provisions  of  these  two  meas- 
ures, and  then  judge  between  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  and 
the  Senator  from  Colorado.  The  President  says: 

In  its  earlier  history  the  national  banking  act  seemed  to  prove  a  reason- 
able avenue  through  which  needful  additions  to  the  circulation  could  from 
time  to  time  be  made.  Changing  conditions  have  apparently  rendered  it 
now  inoperative  to  that  end.  The  high  margin  in  bond  securities  required, 
resulting  from  large  premiums  which  Government  bonds  command  in  the 
market,  or  the  tax  on  note  issues,  or  both  operating  together,  appear  to  be 
the  influences  which  impair  its  public  utility. 

The  attention  of  Congress  is  respectfully  invited  to  this  important  matter 
with  the  view  of  ascertaining  whether  or  not  such  reasonable  modifications 
can  be  made  in  the  national  banking  act  as  will  render  its  service  in  the  par- 
ticulars here  referred  to  more  responsive  to  the  people's  needs.  I  again  urge 
that  national  banks  be  authorized  to  organize  with  a  capital  of  $25,01)0. 

I  urgently  recommend  that  to  support  the  existing  gold  standard,  and  to 
maintain  "the  parity  in  value  of  the  two  metals  (gold  and  silver)  and  the 
equal  power  of  every  dollar  at  all  times  in  the  market  and  in  the  payment  of 
debts,"  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  be  given  additional  power  and  charged 
with  the  duty  to  sell  United  States  bonds  and  to  employ  such  other  effective 
means  as  may  be  necessary  to  these  ends. 

The  authority  should  include  the  power  to  sell  bonds  on  long  and  short 
time,  as  conditions  may  require,  and  should  provide  for  a  rate  of  interest 
lower  than  that  fixed  by  the  act  of  January  14, 1875.  While  there  is  now  no 
commercial  fright  which  withdraws  gold  from  the  Government,  but,  on  the 
contrary,  such  widespread  confidence  that  g9ld  se_eks  the  Treasury,  demand- 
ing paper  money  in  exchange,  yet  the  very  situation  points  to  the  present  as 
the  most  fitting  time  to  make  adequate  provision  to  insiire  the  continuance 
of  the  gold  standard  and  of  public  confidence  in  the  ability  and  purpose  of 
the  Government  to  meet  all  its  obligations  in  the  money  which  the  civilized 
world  recognizes  as  the  best.  The  financial  transactions  of  the  Government 
are  conducted  upon  a  gold  basis. 

We  receive  gold  when  we  sell  United  States  bonds  and  use  gold  for  their 
payment.  We  are  maintaining  the  parity  of  all  the  money  issued  or  coined 
by  authority  of  the  Government.  We  are  doing  these  things  with  the  means 
at  hand.  Happily  at  the  present  time  we  are  not  compelled  to  resort  to  loans 
to  supply  gold.  It  has  been  done  in  the  past,  however,  and  may  have  to  be 
done  in  the  future.  It  behooves  us,  therefore,  to  provide  at  once  the  best 
means  to  meet  the  emergency  when  it  arises,  and  the  best  means  are  those 
which  are  most  certain  and  economical.  Those  now  authorized  have  the 
virtue  neither  of  directness  nor  economy. 

We  have  already  eliminated  one  of  the  causes  of  our  financial  plight  and 
embarrassment  during  the  years  1893, 1894, 1895,  and  1896.  Our  receipts  now 
equal  our  expenditures;  deficient  revenues  no  longer  create  alarm.  Let  us 
remove  the  only  remaining  cause  by  conferring  the  full  and  necessary  power 
on  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  and  impose  upon  him  the  duty  to  iiphold 
the  present  gold  standard  and  preserve  the  coins  of  the  two  metals  on  a 
parity  with  each  other,  which  is  the  repeatedly  declared  policy  of  the  United 
States. 

In  this  connection  I  repeat  my  former  recommendations,  that  a  portion  of 
4026 


the  gold  holdings  shall  be  placed  iua  trust  fund,  from  which  greenbacks  shall 
be  redeemed  upon  presentation,  but  when  once  redeemed  shall  not  thereafter 
be  paid  out  except  for  gold. 

REPUBLICAN  PERFIDY. 

Mr.  President,  no  one  in  the  Republican  party  any  longer  pro- 
fesses friendship  for  silver.  Even  the  President,  who  thinks  it 
the  part  of  wisdom,  if  not  of  statesmanship,  to  follow  where  others 
would  lead,  has  seen  his  way  clear  to  advance  to  the  position  of 
the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  and,  throwing  behind  him  the  pro- 
fessions of  an  entire  lifetime,  has  thought  it  well  to  recommend 
to  Congress  legislation  designed  "to  support  the  existing  gold 
standard.''  No  one,  however,  who  has  studied  the  tendencies  of 
the  Repubfican  party  of  late  years  and  the  peculiar  character- 
istics of  our  honored  Chief  Executive  is  surprised,  unless  we  ex- 
cept the  junior  Senator  from  Colorado.  This  exception  appears 
to  be  necessary  in  view  of  the  warm  and  impassioned  eulogy 
which  that  Senator,  on  returning  from  his  fruitless  trip  abroad, 
delivered  on  the  President  as  an  earnest  and  ardent  friend  of  the 
cause  of  bimetallism.  So  clearly  do  both  of  these  measures  prove 
the  abandonment  by  the  Republican  party  of  its  former  professed 
friendship  for  silver  that  the  majority  of  the  Finance  Committee 
became  alarmed,  after  reporting  their  substitute  to  the  Senate,  at 
the  clear  evidence  of  Republican  perfidy  thus  afforded,  and  on  yes- 
terday they  reported  an  amendment  reviving  the  old  farce  of 
international  agreement  which  was  used  with  such  dishonest 
effect  in  1896.  That  amendment  reads: 

That  the  provisions  of  this  act  are  not  intended  to  place  any  obstacles  in 
the  way  of  the  accomplishment  of  international  bimetallism,  provided  the 
same  be  received  by  concurrent  action  of  the  leading  commercial  nations  of 
the  world,  and  at  a  ratio  which  shall  insure  permanence  of  relative  value 
between  gold  and  silver. 

But  the  people  of  the  United  States  can  not  be  longer  deluded 
with  such  chaff.  The  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  came  to  the  con- 
clusion more  than  two  years  ago  that  it  was  a  worn-out  expedient. 
The  President  has  now  evidently  come  to  the  same  conclusion.  The 
House  of  Representatives  indorses  both  of  them  in  that  view.  And 
before  the  dog  days  are  done  the  Finance  Committee  of  the  United 
States  Senate  will  be  reluctantly  compelled  to  see  the  matter  in 
the  same  light. 

Mr.  President,  it  will  be  observed  from  my  analysis  of  these 
measures,  and  also  from  the  recommendations  of  the  President's 
message,  which  both  measures  were  framed  to  carry  out,  that  I 
was  justified  in  stating  that  the  second  primary  object  of  this  leg- 
islation was  to  vest  a  monopoly  of  money  in  the  national  banks. 
In  anticipation  of  that  result  both  measures  make  provision  for 
increased  facilities  on  the  part  of  the  banks  to  add  to  their  circu- 
lation. The  provisions  in  the  House  bill  to  that  end  are  the  most 
marked  and  pronounced  and  many  radical  changes  are  there  pro- 
posed. The  Senate  substitute,  pursuant  to  the  policy,  which 
appears  to  have  been  thought  wise,  of  muddying  the  waters,  is  not 
quite  so  radical.  However,  it  is  sufficient,  and  under  its  provis- 
ions, if  adopted,  the  banks  will  have  no  difficulty  in  adjusting 
themselves  to  an  execution  of  the  sovereign  power  there  conferred 
on  them.  They  can  contract  the  circulating  medium  to  the  van- 
ishing point  or  expand  it  to  the  bursting  point  at  will,  and  the 
man  little  understands  human  nature  who  imagines  that  they 
will  exercise  this  great  power  with  any  other  view  than  that  of 
their  own  enrichment.  And  the  enrichment  of  one  set  of  men 
4036 


10 

through  the  delegation  of  sovereign  power  means  the  impoverish- 
ment of  everybody  else.  It  always  has  been  so  on  this  earth,  and 
always  will  be  so  until  the  millennium,  and  I  fear,  if  this  pro- 
posed legislation  may  be  accepted  as  indicative  of  the  average  of 
human  thought  and  purpose  toward  our  fellows,  that  that  beatific 
state  of  the  world  is  still  far  in  the  indefinite  future. 

Mr.  President,  to  be  strictly  accurate,  the  money  to  be  retired 
from  circulation  under  these  measures  in  kind  and  amount  is  as 
follows: 

Silver  dollars  in  circulation ---  $85,191,119 

Silver  certificates  outstanding,  representing— 

Silver  dollars  in  the  Treasury 403.136,611 

Treasury  notes,  act  July  14, 1890 :.-    93,518,280 

United  States  notes,  greenbacks 346,681,016 

Total 926,527,088 

Add  to  this  $150,000,000  gold  reserve,  to  be  maintained  in  the 
Treasury  at  all  times,  and  this  will  require  the  Government,  in 
the  immediate  future,  to  come  into  the  possession  of  $1 ,076,527,023 
in  gold.  Of  this  sum  we  now  have  in  the  Treasury  $283,759,734. 
We  will  be  required  then  to  provide,  in  addition  to  the  last-named 
sum,  §792,767.289  more  gold  to  meet  the  demands  on  the  Treasury. 
These  figures  are  stupendous,  but  the  gold  can  be  procured.  We 
have  not  sufficient  in  this  country  to  supply  the  amount  needed, 
but  our  credit  is  good,  and  the  entire  world  stands  read}'  to  honor 
our  requisition  when  backed  by  the  bonds  of  the  nation.  Both 
the  Senate  bill  and  the  House  bill  are  full  in  their  provisions 
authorizing  the  issue  of  bonds  to  meet  the  necessities  of  the  nation 
to  be  created  by  this  great  drain  on  the  Treasury.  I  quote  from 
section  2  of  the  Senate  bill,  so  that  the  country  may  see  how  fully 
the  authors  of  that  measure  realized  the  necessity  of  resorting  to 
loans  to  meet  the  demand  created  by  their  bill: 

If  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  is  unable  to  restore  and  maintain  the  gold 
coin  in  the  reserve  fund  by  the  foregoing  methods,  and  the  amount  of  such 
gold  coin  in  said  fund  shall  at  any  time  fall  below  $100,000,000,  then  it  shall  be 
nis  duty  to  restore  and  maintain  the  same  by  borrowing  money  on  the  credit 
of  the  United  States,  and  for  the  debt  thus  incurred  to  issue  and  sell  coupon 
or  registered  bonds  of  the  United  States  in  such  form  as  he  may  prescribe,  in 
denominations  of  $50  or  any  multiple  thereof,  bearing  interest  at  the  rate  of 
not  exceeding  3  per  cent  per  annum,  payable  quarterly,  etc. 

Mr.  President,  this  process  of  retiring  our  own  money  in  order 
to  give  the  banks  a  monopoly  of  furnishing  the  money  supply 
will  require  an  issue  of  bonds  to  the  amount  of  $792,767,289.  At 
3  per  cent  per  annum,  the  amount  fixed  by  each  of  these 
measures,  this  will  cost  the  taxpayers  every  year  the  sum  of 
$23,783,018.67.  If  we  adopt  twenty  years  as  the  average  life  of 
the  bonds,  the  taxpayers  will  hare  paid  at  the  end  of  that  time 
for  the  privilege  of  further  enriching  the  national  banks  and  in- 
vesting them  with  autocratic  power  the  sum  of  $475,660,373.40. 
These  things  come  high  to  the  taxpayer,  but  in  this  day  and  age, 
when  our  financial  institutions  are  found  contributing  $15,000,009 
to  one  political  party  in  a  single  political  campaign,  the  interests 
of  the  taxpayers,  who  have  nothing  but  votes  to  give,  and  who 
can  be  bamboozled  into  giving  them,  are  a  secondary  consideration. 

GOLD  FOB  ALL  OBLIGATIONS. 

Mr.  President,  I  proceed  now  a  step  further  in  my  analysis  of 
these  measures.  When  it  comes  to  an  explicit  direction  making 
all  the  obligations  of  the  nation  payable  in  gold  coin,  the  two 

4036 


11 

measures  are  somewhat  variant.    Section  2  of  the  House  bill  takes 
the  bull  by  the  horns  and  provides  in  express  terms: 

That  all  interest-bearing  obligations  of  the  United  States  for  the  payment 
of  money  now  existing  or  hereafter  to  be  entered  into,  and  all  United  States 
notes  and  Treasury  notes  issued  under  the  law  of  July  14,  1890,  shall  be 
deemed  and  held  to  be  payable  in  the  gold  coin  of  the  United  States,  as  de- 
fined in  section  1  of  tbis  act,  etc. 

The  Senate  measure  is  not  nearly  so  explicit.  Its  authors  ap- 
parently could  see  no  virtue  in  being  so  direct  and  incriminating. 
After  making  silver  to  be  redeemed  in  gold  it  did  not  seem  neces- 
sary to  their  minds  to  make  further  provision  directing  the  use  of 
gold  in  paying  the  bonds  of  the  nation.  When  the  holders  could 
take  their  silver  and  demand  gold  for  it,  it  would  simply  be  an 
avoidance  of  clumsy  circumlocution  for  the  Secretary  to  establish 
the  practice  of  paying  the  bonds  in  gold  in  the  first  instance. 
Moreover,  the  bulk  of  our  bonded  debt  is  approaching  maturity, 
and  it  was  easier  and  far  less  embarrassing  to  make  a  renewal  of 
those  bonds  the  vehicle  for  introducing  the  gold-paying  clause 
than  to  apply  it  directly  to  the  present  outstanding  bonds,  as  the 
House  bill  does.  Accordingly,  we  find  the  following  elaborate 
provision  in  the  Senate  substitute  for  the  refunding  of  our  3,  4, 
and  5  per  cent  bonds: 

SEC.  6.  That  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  is  hereby  authorized  to  receive 
at  the  Treasury  any  of  the  outstanding  bonds  of  the  United  States  bearing 
interest  at  5  per  cent  per  annum,  payable  February  1, 1904,  and  any  of  the 
bonds  of  the  United  States  bearing  interest  at  4  per  cent  per  annum,  payable 
July  1, 1907,  and  any  bonds  of  the  United  States  bearing  interest  at  3  per  cent 
per  annum,  payable  August  1, 1908,  and  to  issue  in  exchange  therefor  coupon 
or  registered  bonds  of  the  United  States,  in  such  form  as  he  may  prescribe, 
in  denominations  of  $50  or  any  multiple  thereof,  bearing  interest  at  the  rate 
of  2  per  cent  per  annum,  payable  quarterly,  such  bonds  to  be  payable  at  the 
pleasure  of  the  United  States  after  thirty  years  from  the  date  of  their  issue, 
and  said  bonds  to  be  payable,  principal  and  interest,  in  gold  coin  of  the  pres- 
ent standard  value,  and  to  be  exempt  from  the  payment  of  all  taxes  or  duties 
of  the  United  States,  as  well  as  from  taxation  in  any  form  by  or  under  State, 
municipal,  or  local  authority:  Provided,  That  none  of  such  outstanding  bonds 
shall  be  received  in  such  exchange  at  a  valuation  greater  than  their  present 
worth  to  yield  an  income  of  2±  per  cent  per  annum,  and  said  bonds  shall  be 
issued  at  not  less  than  par:  And  provided  further,  That  such  bonds  when  is- 
sued shall  be  numbered  consecutively  in  the  order  of  their  issue,  and  when 
payment  is  made  the  last  numbers  issued  shall  be  first  paid,  and  this  order 
shall  be  followed  until  all  the  bonds  are  paid;  and  whenever  any  of  the  out- 
standing bonds  are  called  for  payment  interest  thereon  shall  cease  three 
months  after  such  call:  And  provided  further,  That  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  may,  in  his  discretion,  pay,  out  of  any  money  in  the  Treasury  not 
otherwise  appropriated,  the  difference  between  the  present  worth,  computed 
as  afpresaid,  of  the  outstanding  bonds  surrendered  in  accordance  with  the 
provisions  of  this  act  and  their  par  value. 

Mr.  President,  the  present  worth  of  the  outstanding  bonds  of 
the  descriptions  mentioned  in  the  foregoing  section  is,  on  an  aver- 
age, about  1.12.  This  would  entitle  the  holder  of  each  outstand- 
ing $1,000  bond  to  receive  in  exchange  a  2  per  cent  gold  bond  for 
$1,120.  The  income  from  this  $1,120  bond,  giving  it  an  average 
life  of  twenty  years,  which,  as  it  is  payable  any  time  at  the  pleas- 
ure of  the  Government,  is  a  fair  average,  would  be  as  follows: 

Annual  interest  at  2  per  cent  on  $1,120 $23.40 

Division  of  premium  of  $130  into  20  annual  payments  and  applied  each 
year  for  20  years 6.00 

Total 28.40 

This  is  equivalent  to  exchanging  at  par  the  present  coin  bonds 

for  gold  bonds  bearing  interest  at  the  rate  of  2.840  per  cent  per 

annum,  or  nearly  3  per  cent. 
Mr.  ALLISON.    Would  I  interrupt  the  Senator  if  I  called  his 

4026 


12 

attention  to  another  portion  of  the  bill,  which  he  seems  to  have 
overlooked? 

Mr.  TURNER.    Not  at  all. 

Mr.  ALLISON.  That  is,  that  there  shall  be  no  more  of  the 
bonds  issued  than  the  bonds  taken  up.  So  it  is  impossible  to  have 
an  eleven  hundred  and  twenty  dollar  bond  as  suggested. 

Mr.  TURNER.  The  bonds  are  to  be  taken  up  that  are  then  out- 
standing, at  the  market  value,  and  if  you  take  up  a  thousand- 
dollar  bond  worth  $120  premium  on  the  market,  how  are  you  to 
get  it  without  issuing  bonds  to  cover  the  premium? 

Mr.  ALLISON.  By  paying  the  difference  in  money.  It  ei- 
pressly  provides  for  that.  I  merely  call  the  attention  of  the  Sen- 
ator to  the  fact  that  the  bonded  debt  is  not  increased  under  the 
bill. 

Mr.  TURNER.  It  is  wholly  immaterial  whether  it  is  paid  in 
money  or  in  bonds. 

Mr.  ALLISON.  It  may  be  immaterial,  but  it  is  a  fact,  never- 
theless, that  it  is  not  paid  in  bonds. 

Mr.  TURNER.  I  apprehend  when  you  go  into  this  business 
you  can  not  get  this  extra  §120 

Mr.  ALLEN.    Will  the  Senator  permit  me? 

Mr.  TURNER.    Certainly. 

Mr.  ALLEN.  Mr.  Gage,  in  his  testimony  before  the  House 
Committee  two  vears  ago,  said  it  would  increase  the  bonded  in- 
debtedness of  the  United  States  by  $90,000,000. 

Mr.  ALLISON.  But  we  hare  expressly  provided  here  that  it 
shall  not. 

Mr.  ALDRICH.  The  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  was  discussing 
another  act,  one  framed  upon  a  different  basis. 

Mr.  ALLEN.    It  was  substantially  the  same. 

Mr.  ALDRICH.  Not  substantially  the  same,  because  it  pro- 
posed to  issue  an  additional  amount  of  bonds. 

Mr.  TURNER.  More  than  all  that,  our  friends  on  the  other 
side  can  not  be  assured  that  their  own  substitute  is  going  to  pass. 
The  House  bill  is  to  be  considered  here  as  well  as  the  Senate  bill. 
The  bill  we  have  here  may  not  be  the  one  which  ultimately  is  to 
become  the  law. 

Mr.  ALDRICH.  The  House  bill  contains  no  provision  of  the 
kind — nothing  in  regard  to  refunding. 

Mr.  TURNER.  I  think  it  does.  I  think  my  analysis  has  shown 
it.  But  perhaps  the  Senator  was  not  here  when  I  was  on  that 
subject. 

The  method  of  exchange  provided  and  the  rate  at  which  the 
exchange  is  to  be  made  is,  as  I  said,  equivalent  to  2.840  per  cent 
per  annum,  or  nearly  3  per  cent.  It  is  fully  equivalent  to  3  per 
cent,  if  not  more,  when  we  consider  that  the  holders  are  to  now 
receive  the  premium  in  a  lump,  instead  of  having  it  spread  out 
over  a  long  series  of  years,  and  that  this  premium  lasts  until  the 
bonds  are  paid,  and  is  paid  when  they  are,  instead  of  suffering  the 
depreciation  to  which  the  premiums  on  all  bonds  are  subject  as 
the  latter  near  maturity  of  payment.  As  we  have  been  able  at 
any  time  during  the  last  ten  years  to  float  3  per  cent  coin  bonds 
at  par,  and  even  above  par,  it  will  be  seen  that  the  only  difference 
between  the  House  bill  and  the  Senate  substitute,  so  far  as  the 
provisions  for  the  payment  of  our  bonded  obligations  in  gold  are 
concerned,  is  that  under  the  House  bill  they  are  to  run  until  ma- 
turity at  the  present  rate  of  interest,  and  then  be  payable  in  gold, 
which  will  be  done  by  refunding  them  into  gold  bonds,  while  un- 
der the  Senate  substitute  they  are  to  be  refunded  into  gold  bonds 

4030 


13 

immediately,  but  at  a  lower  rate  of  interest  than  they  now  bear. 
To  the  extent  last  stated  the  Senate  substitute  is  an  improvement 
on  the  House  bill. 

Under  the  operation  of  both  measures,  then,  our  outstanding 
bonds  are  to  be  made  payable  in  gold.  This  follows  as  a  necessary 
corollary  of  the  provisions  making  gold  the  single  and  sole  stand- 
ard of  money.  If  the  one  thing  is  to  be  done,  the  other  must 
necessarily  follow.  But  the  cost  is  something  to  make  one  marvel. 
For  more  than  twenty  years  we  have  had  the  following  resolution 
concerning  our  bonded  debt,  known  as  the  Stanley  Matthews  reso- 
lution, on  our  statute  books: 

Resolved  by  the  Senate  (the  House  of  Representatives  concurring  therein), 
That  all  the  bonds  of  the  United  States  issued  or  authorized  to  be  issued  under 
the  said  acts  of  Congress  hereinbefore  recited  are  payable,  principal  and  inter- 
est, at  the  option  of  the  Government  of  the  United  States,  in  silver  dollars, 
of  the  coinage  of  the  United  States,  containing  412J  grains  each  of  standard 
silver;  and  that  to  restore  to  its  coinage  such  silver  coins  as  a  legal  tender  in 
payment  of  said  bonds,  principal  and  interest,  is  not  in  violation  of  the  public 
faith,  nor  in  derogation  of  the  rights  of  the  public  creditor. 

That  resolution  passed  both  Houses  of  Congress  in  1878  by  large 
majorities,  and  it  received  the  vote,  I  believe,  of  every  Republican 
then  and  now  in  public  life.  Under  it,  and  with  full  knowledge 
of  its  terms,  every  Government  bond  now  outstanding  has  been 
accepted  by  its  holder.  With  half  a  billion  dollars  in  silver  money 
in  the  Treasury,  we  are  now  giving  up  our  option  to  pay  these  bonds 
in  that  kind  of  money.  If  our  credit  were  impaired  there  might 
be  some  reason  for  making  the  sacrifice.  But  our  coin  bonds, 
payable  in  either  metal  at  the  option  of  the  Government,  are  sell- 
ing in  the  market  at  from  10  to  40  per  cent  above  par,  the  premium 
varying  according  to  the  interest  rate  and  the  length  of  time  the 
bonds  may  run.  Why  are  we  doing  it  then?  Because  if  the  effort 
to  strike  down  silver  is  to  succeed,  we  must  do  it.  To  make  gold 
the  only  standard  money  and  then  decline  to  pay  in  it  would  be 
ridiculous  and  absurd. 

THE  PRICE  OF  THE  GOLD  WHISTLB. 

Now,  how  much  are  we  paying  in  this  matter  alone  for  our  new 
gold  whistle?  In  the  spring  of  1895  Mr.  Cleveland  negotiated  a 
loan  of  $62,315,435,  and  delivered  4  per  cent  bonds  therefor.  He 
notified  Congress,  however,  that  if  it  would  consent  to  make  the 
bonds  gold  bonds  the  purchasers  would  accept  a  rate  of  3  per 
cent,  and  thus  save  the  Government,  during  the  life  of  the  bonds, 
the  sum  of  $16,174,770.  Here  is  what  Mr.  Cleveland  said  to  Con- 
gress: 

The  arrangement  just  completed  *  *  *  develops  such  a  difference  in 
the  estimation  of  investors  between  bonds  made  payable  in  coin  and  those 
specifically  made  payable  in  gold  in  favor  of  the  latter,  aa  represented  by 
three-fourths  of  a  cent  in  annual  interest.  In  the  agreement  just  concluded 
the  annual  saving  in  interest  to  the  Government,  if  3  per  cent  gold  bonds 
should  be  substituted  for  4  per  cent  coin  bonds  under  the  privilege  reserved, 
would  be  $539,159,  amounting  in  thirty  years,  or  at  the  maturity  of  the  coin 
bonds,  to  $16,174,770. 

Congress,  however,  declined,  even  for  the  proffered  saving,  to 
degrade  silver  by  making  the  bonds  payable  in  gold,  and  none 
were  more  vehement  in  denouncing  the  proposition  than  the  Re- 
publican Senators  and  Representatives  then  in  public  life.  Now, 
if  there  be  the  same  proportional  difference  in  value  between  all 
our  outstanding  coin  bonds  and  strict  gold  bonds,  and  it  is  hard 
to  see  why  there  should  not  be,  it  is  a  mere  matter  of  mathemat- 
ical calculation  to  determine  the  value  of  the  right  we  are  now 
giving  up.  The  proportion  that  16,000,000  bears  to  62,000,000, 
MM 


14 

applied  to  our  entire  bonded  indebtedness,  amounting  to  $1, 300,- 
000,000,  gives  us  as  a  result,  roughly  speaking,  $325,000,000.  That 
sum,  then,  is  the  value  of  our  option  to  pay  in  silver,  which  we  are 
making  a  present  of  to  the  holders  of  our  bonds.  If  it  is  vrort-h 
that  to  them,  it  is  worth  that  to  us. 

Yes,  Mr.  President,  to  speak  broadly,  it  is  worth  ten  times  that 
sum  to  us,  because  if  we  retain  it  we  will  be  in  honor  bound  to 
maintain  silver  as  a  money  metal,  to  enter  on  a  policy  which  will 
support  and  uphold  its  dignity  and  sustain  its  purchasingand  debt- 
paying  power.  In  the  enhanced  value  which  a  successful  mainte- 
nance of  that  policy  would  give  to  our  products  now  and  in  the 
future  the  sum  of  §325,000,000  would,  by  comparison,  be  a  mere 
bagatelle.  But  I  seenowhere  in  either  of  these  rneasuresany  indica- 
tion thatthe  interests  of  the  people  of  thiscountry  have  been  consid- 
ered. The  Republican  party  is  legislating  for  the  moneyed  inter- 
ests, and  those  interests  require  not  cheap  money  and  dear  goods, 
but  dear  money  and  cheap  goods;  they  require  not  an  amplitude 
of  money  and  an  enhancement  of  prices,  but  a  paucity  of  money 
and  a  decline  of  prices.  Let  it  be  so.  I  welcome  this  evidence  of 
the  solicitude  of  that  party  for  their  very  dear  friends.  It  comes 
at  an  opportune  time.  My  only  surprise  is  that  the  Republican 
party,  with  its  record  of  shiftiness  on  this  question,  could  get  its 
own  consent  to  come  out  into  the  open  in  a  Presidential  year  and 
in  advance  of  the  casting  of  the  votes. 

A  NEW  SLAVERY. 

Mr.  President,  the  fight  made  in  this  country  to  preserve  silver 
as  money  is  the  only  issue  we  have  had  since  the  abolition  of  slav- 
ery which  has  appealed  to  the  higher  sensibilities  of  the  human 
mind  and  aroused  to  life  and  energy  the  nobler  emotions  of  the 
human  heart.  This  is  so  because  the  question  involves  the  never- 
ceasing  conflict  of  interest  between  aggressive  power,  panoplied 
with  all  the  aids  that  make  for  success,  arid  impotent  weakness, 
naked  and  helpless  before  its  confident  and  ever-pushing  adversary. 
In  that  conflict,  bottomed  as  it  is  on  the  selfishness  of  human  na- 
ture, strength  is  always  advancing  because  it  can  and  weakness 
receding  because  it  must,  and  if  there  were  not  a  power  some- 
where to  throw  its  force  into  the  scale  and  restore  the  equilibrium 
the  process  would  go  on  until  there  was  absolute  dominion  on  the 
one  hand  and  abject  slavery  on  the  other.  It  always  has  been  so 
where  power  could  work  its  will,  and  it  always  will  be  so.  The 
overruling  force  that  intervenes  when  the  process  has  reached 
a  point  that  provokes  the  attention  of  the  world  is  the  enlightened 
conscience  of  mankind.  Such  a  conflict  has  been  going  on  for 
the  last  twenty-five  years  throughout  the  entire  world,  strength 
being  represented  by  the  wealth  of  the  few  and  weakness  by  the 
poverty  of  the  many.  The  struggle  has  been  to  enhance  the 
purchasing  power  of  the  money  controlled  by  the  former  and  to 
diminish  thereby  the  selling  power  of  the  commodities  produced 
by  the  latter.  I  would  not  say  that  any  single  individual  has  con- 
sciously acted  on  such  a  view.  We  are'  all  of  us  prone  to  associate 
our  own  interests  with  those  of  our  country,  and  this  conflict  has 
been  going  on  between  strong  and  weak  nations  as  well  as  be- 
tween strong  and  weak  individuals.  The  creditor  nation  wants 
dear  money  and  cheap  commodities,  the  same  as  the  creditor  in- 
dividual. And  even  the  weak  nation,  like  the  weak  individual, 
may  feel  called  on  to  submit  to  the  exactions  of  power,  and  to 
conform  its  fiscal  and  commercial  policy  to  that  of  its  neighbors, 
lest  it  meet  with  further  aggressions,  which  might  lay  it  helpless 

4026 


15 

and  prostrate  at  the  feet  of  its  adversary.  So  that  men  of  every 
nation  are  always  able  to  bolster  themselves  with  the  satisfac- 
tion of  believing  that  their  action,  however  selfish  it  might  oe 
if  it  concerned  their  individual  interests  alone,  is  really  based  on 
a  patriotic  conception  of  that  which  is  best  for  the  interests  of  the 
country  at  large.  But,  however,  it  is  the  leaven  of  self-interest  at 
'bottom,  scarcely  perceived,  perhaps  not  perceived  at  all,  that  turns 
the  scale,  and  the  individual  generally  finds  himself  acting  with  his 
own  class  and  as  his  and  its  interests  seem  to  require. 

This  conflict,  I  say,  has  been  going  on  for  the  last  twenty-five 
years,  and  it  has  taken  the  form  of  an  attempt  to  lessen  the  supply 
of  metallic  money  in  the  world  in  order  that  that  which  remains 
may  increase  in  purchasing  power,  and  thus  further  enrich  its 
owners  by  an  unearned  increment  to  be  paid  by  the  masses  in 
cheapened  products.  The  governing  powers  of  Europe,  with  this 
end  in  view,  determined  more  than  twenty -five  years  ago  that  silver 
should  cease  to  be  money,  and  they  kept  up  the  struggle  until  in  a 
very  short  time  every  nation  in  Europe  of  any  consequence  had 
ceased  to  coin  silver.  We  ourselves  in  1873,  through  ignorance  of 
the  import  of  our  action,  forbade  silver  free  and  unlimited  access 
to  our  mints,  and  thereby  joined  the  coalition  of  the  classes  against 
the  masses.  But  our  statesmen  soon  realized  what  they  had  done, 
and  then  a  struggle  began  to  right  the  great  wrong,  which  has  con- 
tinued with  varying  fortunes  down  to  the  present  moment.  At 
times  it  has  seemed  on  the  point  of  succeeding,  but  ignorance, 
weakness,  and  selfishness  have  always  had  the  power  to  postpone 
victory,  and  now  it  would  seem  as  if  a  combination  of  those  forces 
was  about  to  fasten  the  great  iniquity  of  gold  monometallism  on 
the  world  for  all  time  to  come. 

The  Republican  party  does  not  lend  itself  to  these  forces  in  igno- 
rance of  the  nature  of  its  act  or  of  the  consequences  which  will 
ensue.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  proceeding  with  open  eyes  and  in  the 
light  of  long-continued  discussion  in  which  it  participated,  of  legis- 
lative declarations  which  it  helped  to  make,  and  of  solemn  party 
pledges  which  it  may  now  ignore,  but  which  will  ever  rise  up  to 
accuse  and  convict  it  of  perjured  faithlessness. 

Mr.  Blaine  said  in  a  speech  in  this  body  as  long  ago  as  1878: 

I  believe  gold  and  silver  coin  to  be  the  money  of  the  Constitution— indeed, 
the  money  of  the  American  people  anterior  to  the  Constitution,  which  that 
great  organic  law  recognized  as  quite  independent  of  its  own  existence.  No 
power  was  conferred  on  Congress  to  declare  that  either  metal  should  not  be 
money.  Congress  has,  therefore,  in  my  judgment,  no  power  to  demonetize 
silver  any  more  than  to  demonetize  gold;  no  power  to  demonetize  either  any 
more  than  to  demonetize  both.  *  *  *  Few  persons  can  be  found,  I  appre- 
hend, who  will  maintain  that  Congress  possesses  the  power  to  demonetize 
both  gold  and  silver,  or  that  Congress  could  be  justified  in  prohibiting  the 
coinage  of  both;  and  yet  in  logic  and  legal  construction  it  would  be  difficult 
to  show  where  and  why  the  power  of  Congress  over  silver  is  greater  than 
over  gold— greater  over  either  than  over  the  two.  If,  therefore,  silver  has 
baen  demonetized,  I  am  in  favor  of  remonetizing  it.  If  its  coinage  has  been 
prohibited,  I  am  in  favor  of  ordering  it  to  be  resumed.  If  it  has  been  re- 
stricted. I  am  in  favor  of  having  it  enlarged. 

*  *  *  *  *  *  * 

I  believe  the  struggle  now  going  on  in  this  country  and  in  other  countries 
for  a  single  gold  standard  would,  if  successful,  produce  widespread  disaster 
in  the  end  throughout  the  commercial  world.  The  destruction  of  silver  as 
money,  and  establishing  gold  as  the  sole  unit  of  value,  must  have  a  ruinous 
effect  on  all  forms  of  property  except  those  investments  which  yield  a  fixed 
return  in  money.  These  would  be  enormously  enhanced  in  value,  and  would 


gain  a  disproportionate  and  unfair  advantage  over  every  other  species  of 
property.  If,  as  the  most  reliable  statistics  affirm,  there  are  nearly  $7,000,- 
000,000  of  coin  or  bullion  in  the  world,  not  very  unequally  divided  between 


gold  and  silver,  it  is  impossible  to  strike  silver  out  of  existence  as  money 
without  results  which  will  prove  distressing  to  millions  and  utterly  disastrous 
to  tens  of  thousands.  (Prom  speech  in  U.  B.  Senate  February  7, 1878.) 


4026 


16 

Mr.  McKinley,  in  a  public  speach  at  Toledo.  Ohio,  as  late  as 
February  12,  1891,  said: 

During  all  of  Grover  Cleveland's  years  at  tko  head  of  the  Government  he 
was  dishonoring  one  of  our  precious  metals,  one  of  our  own  prodacts,  dis- 
crediting silver  and  enhancing  the  price  of  gold.  He  endeavored  even  before 
his  inauguration  to  office  to  stop  the  coinage  of  silver  dollars,  and  afterwards 
and  to  the  end  of  his  Administration  persistently  used  his  power  to  that  end. 
He  was  determined  to  contract  the  circulating  medium  and  to  demonetize 
one  of  the  coins  of  commerce,  limit  the  volume  of  money  among  the. people, 
make  money  scarce,  and  therefore  dear.  He  would  have  increased  the  value 
of  money  and  diminished  the  value  of  everything  else— money  the  master, 
everything  else  the  servant.  He  was  not  thinking  of-  the  poor  "  then.  He  had 
left  "their  side."  Hewasuotstandingforthintheirdefen.se.  Cheap  coats. 
cheap  labor,  and  dear  money!  The  sponsor  and  promoter  of  these  professing 
to  stand  guard  over  the  welfare  of  the  poor  and  lowly:  Was  there  evermore 
inconsistency  or  reckless  assumption! 

Between  these  speeches  and  before  and  since  our  political  litera- 
ture has  been  enriched  with  a  wealth  of  discussion  and  illustra- 
tion from  Republican  sources,  and  all  in  the  same  line,  from 
which  I  would  quote  if  it  were  not  to  weary  the  Senate  with  the 
iteration  of  things  which  it  has  heard  so  often  and  knows  so  well. 
I  will  content  myself  with  the  statement  that  almost  every  Re- 
publican statesman  in  public  life  to-day  has  at  one  time  or  an- 
other given  utterances  in  this  or  the  other  Chamber,  or  on  the 
stump,  to  language  showing  the  most  perfect  familiarity  with  the 
true  reason  for  the  crusade  against  silver  and  the  fullest  compre- 
hension of  the  baleful  results  to  ensue  to  the  people  if  that  cru- 
sade should  in  the  end  be  successful. 

In  1888  Mr.  McKinley,  then  chairman  of  the  platform  com- 
mittee of  the  Republican  national  convention,  reported  to  the 
convention  and  procured  to  be  adopted  on  the  subject  of  bimetal- 
lism, the  following  plank: 

The  Republican  party  is  in  favor  of  both  gold  and  silver  as  money,  and 
condemns  the  policy  of  the  Democratic  Administration  in  its  efforts  to  de- 
monetize silver. 

In  1892  the  Republican  party  adopted  this  platform  on  the  siib- 
ject  of  bimetallism: 

The  American  people,  from  tradition  and  interest,  favor  bimetallism,  and 
the  Republican  party  demand  the  use  of  both  gold  and  silver  as  a  standard 
money,  with  such  restrictions  and  under  such  provisions,  to  be  determined 
by  legislation,  as  will  secure  the  maintenance  of  the  parity  of  values  of  the 
two  metals  so  that  the  purchasing  and  debt-paying  power  of  the  dollar, 
whether  silver,  gold,  or  paper,  shall  be  at  a]l  times  equal.  We  commend  the 
•wise  and  patriotic  steps  taken  by  our  Government  to  secure  an  international 
conference  and  adopt  such  measures  as  will  insure  a  parity  between  gold  and 
silver  for  use  as  money  throughout  the  world. 

It  is  evident,  then,  that  the  Republican  party  is  not  now  pro- 
ceeding in  ignorance  of  the  principles  underlying  the  question, or 
of  the  effect  which  must  sooner  or  later  ensue,  should  the  present 
efforts  of  its  leaders  in  Congress  be  successful.  Our  Republican 
friends  have  simply  turned  a  deaf  ear  to  their  own  teachings,  and 
at  the  dictation  of  the  selfish  interests  to  which  they  have  surren- 
dered have  abandoned  the  people  to  the  evils  they  have  so  often 
foretold  and  which  they  foresee  now  as  plainly  as  at  any  former 
period  in  the  history  of  their  party. 

BOASTING  OF  A  BUNCO  GAME. 

Mr.  President,  the  silver  question  is  not  dead,  but  if  it  were 
so,  as  Republican  orators  and  newspapers  tauntingly  proclaim, 
it  might  be  written  on  its  tombstone,  "Dead  in  the  house  of 
its  friends,  and  murdered  by  the  author  of  its  being."  So  cer- 
tain are  our  Republican  friends  that  it  is  dead  that  they  have  be- 
gun to  quarrel  over  the  question  of  who  delivered  the  coup  de 
grace.  It  is  assumed  that  the  money  plank  of  the  St.  Louis  con- 

4036 


17 

vention,  that  skilfully  constructed  juggle  of  words  designed  to 
read  all  things  to  all  men,  did  the  business,  and  two  distinguished 
Republican  citizens  are  proudly  claiming  the  authorship  of  that 
plank.  The  controversy  waxed  so  warm  that  it  involved  to  a  greater 
or  less  extent  most  of  the  shining  lights  who  were  at  St.  Louis  assist- 
ing in  that  pious  fraud,  and  nearly  all  of  them  have  now  spoken, 
giving  such  lucid  testimony  that  both  distinguished  citizens  feel 
fully  confirmed  thereby  in  the  honor  which  they  have  claimed. 
For  my  part,  speaking  merely  to  the  truth  of  history,  and  without 
desiring  to  disturb  the  satisfied  equanimity  which  any  man  may 
feel  in  his  achievements,  I  should  as  soon  boast  of  a  successful  con- 
fidence game  practiced  on  some  confiding  innocent  as  to  claim 
credit  for  the  financial  plank  of  the  St.  Louis  platform,  because  if 
a  bunco  game  was  ever  successfully  played,  one  was  perpetrated 
when  the  people  of  the  United  States  were  induced  by  that  plank 
to  vote  Mr.  McKinley  into  the  Presidential  chair.  If  the  silver 
question  be  dead,  indeed,  and  these  measures  of  legislation  are 
intended  for  its  burial,  let  it  not  be  forgotten  by  our  Republican 
friends  that  all  must  die,  and  that  there  is  a  resurrection  morn  when 
all  shall  stand  before  the  great  white  throne,  the  deserving  to  drink 
of  the  water  of  eternal  life,  "  But  the  fearful,  and  unbelieving,  and 
abominable,  and  murderers,  and  whoremongers,  and  sorcerers,  and 
idolaters,  and  all  liars,  shall  have  their  part  in  the  lake  which 
burneth  with  fire  and  brimstone." 

No  Republican  to-day  denies  the  principle,  laid  down  by  politi- 
cal economists  without  exception,  that  the  general  level  of  prices 
of  all  commodities  is  determined  by  the  volume  of  money  in  ex- 
istence, and  that  to  decrease  the  volume  of  money  is  to  decrease 
the  general  average  of  prices,  and  to  increase  the  volume  of  money 
is  to  increase  the  general  average  of  prices.  They  can  not  deny  it, 
because  it  is  too  well  established  and  has  been  too  many  times 
illustrated  and  proven  in  the  history  of  the  world.  But  they  say 
that  the  output  of  gold  has  increased  so  enormously  of  late  years 
that  that  metal  is  sufficient  to  bear  the  burden  formerly  borne  by 
both  gold  and  silver,  and  they  point  to  the  present  alleged  pros- 
perity of  our  country  in  confirmation  of  their  contention.  But 
our  prosperity,  such  as  it  is,  is  only  comparative.  It  is  based  on 
a  range  of  prices  for  all  the  products  of  the  workshop,  the  forge, 
and  the  farm,  which  are  50  per  cent  less  than  those  whi  :h  pre- 
vailed twenty-five  years  ago,  when  silver  was  first  struck  down. 
Such  a  result,  succeeding  the  true  prosperity  of  that  day,  would 
have  been  starvation  then;  but  succeeding  a  long  period  of  starva- 
tion now,  it  may  in  a  sense  be  called  prosperity. 

OUR  PROSPERITY. 

Without  stopping  to  discuss  the  effect  which  the  war  with  Spain 
and  the  present  war  with  the  Filipinos  may  have  had  in  produc- 
ing such  prosperity  as  we  now  enjoy,  or  the  influence  thereon  of  a 
repeated  failure  of  crops  in  other  countries  while  our  own  have 
been  bountiful,  it  is  sufficient  for  the  purposes  of  my  argument  to 
say  that  the  claim  of  increased  prosperity  by  reason  of  the  bounti- 
ful output  of  gold,  or  the  admission  that  that  has  had  influence  in 
that  direction,  is  the  highest  confirmation  of  the  correctness  of 
those  who  in  1896  laid  our  evils  to  the  striking  down  of  silver,  and 
who  insisted  that  it  could  be  corrected  by  again  restoring  silver  to 
its  full  function  as  one  of  our  money  metals.  It  is  striking  proof 
of  the  fact  that  prosperity  depends  on  the  possession  of  an  ample 
volume  of  primary  money,  capable  of  paying  debts  everywhere 
throughout  the  world.  Now,  with  this  fact  conceded  and  empha- 
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18 

sized,  how  can  any  fair-minded  man,  desirous  of  promoting  the 
happiness  and  prosperity  of  our  people,  get  his  own  consent  to 
proceed  to  the  final  and  irremediable  destruction  of  silver  money 
by  the  passage  of  either  one  of  these  measures  now  before  Con- 
gress? Who  can  say  how  long  this  increased  output  of  gold  is  to 
continue?  And  when  it  ceases,  as  it  must  do,  sooner  or  later, 
what  barrier  are  we  then  to  interpose  against  the  renewed  appre- 
ciation of  money  and  the  renewed  depreciation  of  all  other  forms 
of  property?  When  that  process  shall  again  commence  and  pro- 
ceed as  far  and  as  rapidly  as  it  did  from.  1673  to  1900,  our  farmers 
will  be  serfs,  our  mechanics  bondmen,  and  our  laborers  slaves. 
With  the  immediate  past  behind  them  and  its  lessons  graven  on 
their  minds,  with  the  prospective  future  before  them  and  its  con- 
sequences so  clearly  pointed  out,  to  assume  that  the  silver  question 
is  dead  so  long  as  the  masses  of  our  people  have  votes  to  give  is  to 
say  that  they  do  not  deserve  to  be  free  and  that  they  ought  to  be 
slaves. 

THE  FIGHT  FOR  THE  RIGHT. 

Mr.  President,  both  our  great  political  parties  admitted  for 
years  that  the  striking  down  of  silver  was  a  crime  against  human- 
ity, and  both  declared  in  their  platforms  time  after  time  that 
our  nation  was  strong  enough  to  undo  the  crime,  and  that  its  duty 
to  its  own  people  required  it  to  do  so.  I  do  not  mean  that  they 
so  declared  in  terms,  but  that  was  the  effect  of  their  declarations. 
Yet,  notwithstanding  these  declarations,  no  matter  which  politi- 
cal party  succeeded  in  securing  the  votes  of  the  people,  nothing 
was  ever  done  to  restore  silver.  At  last,  in  1890,  when  the  condi- 
tion of  the  country  had  become  deplorable,  public  interest  was 
aroused  to  a  pitch  which  demanded  not  only  a  decisive  declara- 
tion by  both  political  parties,  but  the  nomination  of  candidates 
whose  history  and  personality  would  insure  that  the  declarations 
made  would  be  crystallized  into  law.  The  Republican  party  was 
the  first  to  meet  in  national  convention  in  that  year,  and  instead 
of  meeting  the  just  expectations  of  the  people  by  an  explicit  state- 
ment affirming  its  former  declarations,  making  good  the  profes- 
sions of  its  leaders,  and  exemplifying  its  long  and  illustrious  career 
as  the  champion  of  human  rights,  it  in  gloriously  surrendered  itself 
to  the  selfish  interests  against  whose  aggressions  the  people  were 
clamoring,  adopted  a  juggling  and  deceptive  platform,  and  then 
nominated  William  McKinley  thereon  for  President  of  the  United 
States. 

The  Democratic  party  was  the  next  to  meet  in  convention,  and 
never  did  a  political  party  in  this  country  more  gloriously  respond 
to  the  demands  of  an  imperious  situation  or  the  just  expectations 
of  an  insistent  people.  The  note  which  was  then  struck  vibrated 
with  the  accents  of  earnestness  and  truth,  and  the  great  leader  put 
forth  was  himself  an  inspiration  and  a  platform.  More  than  that» 
that  party  pulled  down  from  their  high  places  and  expelled  from 
the  Democratic  temple  the  unfaithful  stewards  who  had  so  long 
stood  in  its  way  and  stultified  its  most  solemn  and  binding  declara- 
tions. It  did  that  which  few  political  parties  in  their  decadence 
have  ever  had  the  power  to  do.  It  renewed  its  youth,  rejuvenated 
itself,  dedicated  itself  anew  to  the  cause  of  liberty  and  humanity. 
It  made  itself  again  the  party  of  Thomas  Jefferson,  and  stepped  into 
the  shoes  of  the  Republican  party  as  the  true  exponent  of  the  prin- 
ciples of  Abraham  Lincoln.  Its  action  was  so  glorious  that  another 
political  party,  young,  strong,  and  vigorous,  and  formed  in  despair 
at  the  faithlessness  of  the  old  parties,  melted  into  its  embrace  and 
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19 

adopted  its  platform  and  its  candidate;  and  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  men  who  had  never  voted  anything  but  the  Republican 
ticket,  moved  by  the  manifest  deception  and  trickery  and  chicane 
in  their  own  party,  of  which  they  had  long  been  tired  and  to 
which  they  had  determined  to  no  longer  submit,  let  the  scales 
drop  from  their  eyes  and  sprang  to  the  support  of  the  standard 
erected  by  the  loyalty  and  the  courage  and  the  conviction  of  a 
noble,  an  inspired,  and  a  godlike  Democracy. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  recount  the  struggle  which  followed. 
Everybody  knows  that  the  \vill  of  the  people  was  defeated  by 
force,  by  fraud,  by  intimidation,  by  corruption  without  parallel 
in  the  history  of  the  country.  But  the  gallant  fight  is  to  be  re- 
newed on  the  same  lines  and  under  the  same  leadership.  And 
now  that  the  Republican  party  has  come  out  into  the  open,  re- 
canted even  its  hypocritical  professions  made  at  St.  Louis,  become 
the  open  advocate  of  all  the  industrial  trusts,  and  made  itself  the 
father  of  the  great  monetary  trust  erected  by  the  measures  now 
pending  and  under  consideration— the  trust  of  trusts,  which  is  to 
crush  the  lifeblood  not  out  of  labor  alone,  but  out  of  every  pro- 
fession, avocation,  and  pursuit  not  allied  to  itself — who  can  doubt 
that  the  enlightened  conscience  of  the  nation  will  at  last  triumph 
over  the  force  and  fraud  and  corruption  which  before  stood  in  its 
way  and  which  will  be  again  opposed  to  its  just  and  humane  de- 
mands? 

Mr.  President,  I  have  here  a  discussion  by  Mr.  Bryan  upon  the 
questions  to  which  I  have  adverted  in  my  remarks.  Without 
reading  it,  I  ask  that  it  may  be  printed  as  part  of  my  speech. 

The  PRESIDING  OFFICER  (Mr.  McCoMAS  in  the  chair).  In 
the  absence  of  objection,  it  will  be  so  ordered. 

The  paper  referred  to  is  as  follows: 

BANK-NOTE  DESPOTISM. 

[William  J.  Bryan  in  the  New  York  Journal.] 

The  advocates  of  the  gold  standard  have  a  double  purpose:  First,  they  de- 
sire to  make  gold  the  only  legal  tender  for  the  payment  of  debts,  public  and 
private.  I  have  discussed  this  question  on  former  occasions  and  pointed  out 
that  the  necessary  effect  of  such  a  law  would  be  to  create  a  greater  demand 
for  gold,  which  would  then  be  the  only  money  legally  available  for  the  pay- 
ment of  debts,  and  thus  aid  the  money-owning  class  and  injure  the  wealth- 
producing  class. 

The  second  purpose  of  the  advocates  of  the  gold  standard  is  to  make  bank 
notes  the  only  credit  money. 

In  response  to  your  invitation,  I  beg  to  submit  a  few  arguments  in  support 
of  the  greenback  as  against  the  bank  note.  The  greenback  is  issued  by  the 
Government,  and  the  volume  of  such  money  is  determined  by  the  people, 
acting  through  their  representatives.  The  Supreme  Court  has  held  that 
such  a  money  can  be  made  a  legal  tender.  When  a  man  has  greenbacks  in 
his  pocket  he  has  money  which  is  available  for  the  payment  of  his  debts;  if 
he  has  bank  notes,  his  money  is  only  good  when  the  creditor  is  willing  to 
accept  the  money. 

During  the  war,  when  gold  and  silver  were  at  a  premium,  bank  notes  cir- 
culated on  a  level  with  greenbacks  and  were  never  worth  any  more;  the 
reason  being  that  national-bank  notes  are  payable  in  lawful  money,  and  the 
greenback  being  lawful  money  (and  at  that  time  the  cheapest  money)  was 
used  by  the  banks  for  the  redemption  of  bank  notes.  It  is  interesting  now 
to  hear  these  same  bankers,  who  redeemed  bank  notes  in  paper  when  gold 
and  silver  were  at  a  premium  of  over  a  hundred  per  cent,  talk  about  the  dis- 
honesty of  a  debtor,  whether  the  debtor  bo  an  individual  or  the  Government, 
who  would  redeem  his  obligations  in  anything  but  the  dearest  money. 

The  bank  note  has  been  good  because  it  has  had  behind  it  the  bonds  and 
the  greenbacks  issued  by  the  Government.  If  the  greenback  is  good  enough 
to  stand  behind  the  bank  note,  it  is  good  enough  to  stand  alone  without  any 
bank  note  in  front  of  it. 

A  national- bank  currency  is  objectionable  because  it  is  gross  favoritism 
extended  to  a  few.  A  bill  reported  by  the  House  Committee  pn  Coinage, 
Weights,  and  Measures  in  the  last  Congress  provided : 

First,  that  the  Treasurer  of  the  United  States  pay  out  gold  coin  in  re- 
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20 

demption  of  greenbacks  and  Treasury  notes;  second,  that  the  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury  have  authority  to  issue  gold  bonds,  drawing  not  more  than  3 
per  cent,  to  secure  the  gold  to  maintain  gold  redemption:  third,  that  national 
banks  be  allowed  to  deposit  bonds  and  receive  bank  notes  up  to  the  par  value 
of  the  bonds  so  deposited;  fourth,  that  the  tax  on  the  national  banks  be  re- 
duced. If  this  plan  goes  into  operation,  the  difference  in  its  effect  upon  the 
individual  and  the  national  bank  may  be  stated  as  follows:  The  greenbacks 
are  to  be  retired  and  bonds  issued.  This  will  mean  an  increase  in  taxes  to 
pay  the  interest  upon  the  bonds.  The  individual  who  enjoys  110  special  priv- 
ileges will  find  his  taxes  increased,  while  the  national  bank,  that  enjoy* 
special  privileges,  will  find  its  tax  diminished. 

Second.  If  the  individual  buys  a  bond  at  par,  he  will  lose  the  use  of  his 
money  and  must  content  himself  with  the  3  per  cent  interest.  If  a  national 
bank  invests  its  capital  in  bonds  at  par,  it  can  deposit  the  bonds  and  secure 
bank  notes  to  the  face  value  of  the  oonds,  thus  securing  a  return  of  its  in- 
vestment, and  in  addition  to  that  it  can  draw  3  per  cent  interest  upon  the 
bonds.  In  other  words,  the  individual  parts  with  his  money  and  draws  in- 
terest, while  the  national  bank  gets  its  money  back  and  draws  interest  be- 
sides. The  individual  must  eat  his  cake  or  keop  it.  The  national  bank  both 
eats  its  cake  and  keeps  it.  This  is  favoritism  that  ought  not  to  be  tolerated 
in  a  government  which  recognizes  the  doctrine  of  equality  before  the  law. 
The  moment  the  Government  begins  to  confer  special  privileges  those  in  a 
position  to  profit  by  favoritism  begin  to  clamor  for  legislation  immediately 
in  their -interest,  and  as  a  result  th»  instrumentalities  of  government  are 
used  for  private  gain  and  the  true  purpose  of  government  forgotten. 

There  is  another  objection  to  the  national-bank  currency,  namely,  that 
the  national  banks  are  given  control  over  the  volume  of  credit  money. 
Power  to  issue  money  should  never  be  intrusted  to  private  individuals  or 
private  corporations.  Jefferson  was  an  opponent  of  banks  of  issue,  and  in 
one  of  his  letters  declared  that  his  opposition  was  so  persistent  that  he  had 
been  denounced  as  a  maniac  by  those  bankers  who  desired  to  secure  this 
privilege  from  the  Government.  Benton,  in  summing  up  the  work  of  Jack- 
son, gave  emphasis  to  his  fight  with  the  national  bank,  and  compared  his 
work  with  the  work  of  Cicero,  saying  that  when  he  destroyed  the  bank  con- 
spiracy he  saved  America  as  Cicero  had  saved  Rome  by  overthrowing  the 
conspiracy  of  Cataline. 

Wendell  Phillips  has  so  well  described  the  danger  of  allowing  private  indi- 
viduals to  control  the  volume  of  money  that  I  quote  from  a  speech  made  by 
him  a  few  years  before  his  death: 

"  In  other  words,  it  was  the  currency  which,  rightly  arranged,  opened  a 
nation's  well  springs,  found  work  for  willing  hands  to  do,  and  filled  them 
with  a  just  return,  while  honest  capital,  daily  larger  and  more  secure,  min- 
istered to  a  glad  prosperity.  Or  it  was  currency,  wickedly  and  selfishly  jug- 
gled, that  made  merchants  bankrupt  and  starved  labor  into  discontent  and 
slavery,  while  capital  added  house  to  house  and  field  to  field,  and  gathered 
into  its  miserly  hands  all  the  wealth  left  in  a  ruined  land. 

"The  first  question,  therefore,  in  an  industrial  nation  is:  Where  ought 
control  of  the  currency  to  rest?  In  whose  hands  can  this  almost  omnipotent 
power  be  trusted?  Every  writer  of  political  economy,  from  Aristotle  to 
Adam  Smith,  allows  that  a  change  in  the  currency  alters  the  price  of  every 
ounce  and  yard  9f  merchandise  and  every  foot  of  land.  Whom  can  we  trust 
with  this  despotism?  At  present  the  banks  and  tho  money  kings  wield  this 
power.  They  own  tho  yardstick,  and  can  make  it  longer  or  shorter,  as  they 
please.  They  own  every  pound  weight  and  can  make  it  heavier  or  lighter 
as  they  choose.  This  explains  the  riddle,  so  mysterious  to  the  common  people, 
that  those  who  trade  in  money  always  grow  rich,  even  while  those  who  trade 
in  other  things  go  into  bankruptcy." 

The  third  objection  to  national  banks  of  issue  is  that  the  moment  the  na- 
tional bank  is  permitted  to  issue  money,  that  moment  it  becomes,  for  pecu- 
niary reasons,  the  enemy  of  any  Government  paper. 

The  banks  are  now  urging  that  the  issue  of  paper  money  is  a  function  of 
the  banks  and  that  the  Government  ought  to  go  out  of  the  banking  business. 
Our  answer  is  that  the  issue  of  money  is  a  function  of  government  and  that 
the  banks  ought  to  go  out  of  the  governing  business.  The  Government  can 
not  afford  to  build  up  a  strong  financial  interest  hostile  to  the  exercise,  by  tha 
Government,  of  the  right  to  issiie  and  control  both  the  metallic  and  paper 
money  of  the  nation. 

Our  national-bank  circulation  rests  upon  Government  bonds,  and  can  not 
in  amount  exceed  the  total  sum  of  bonds  outstanding.    Hence,  if  the  banks- 
are  to  supply  an  increasing  amount  of  currency  to  meet  the  needs  of  increas- 
ing population  and  business,  the  national  debt  must  perpetually  increase. 
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